QUEEN Of RUIN
The Hall of Alviss dining area was as large as it was opulent.
It boasted a high ceiling, patriotic and religious tapestries covered dark stone walls between dark wood pillars capped top and bottom with white marble. Lined along the walls were intricate statues of small people, enchanted to come alive at night. Three large tables that could seat one hundred people each other dominated the room. Servants quietly carried platters and pitchers of rich foods and delicate room was alive with the noise of Tristain's noble class, students one and all under the watchful eye of their instructors.
For all of its accolades and esteemed clientele, the Tristain Academy of Magic was still a school for teenagers, a species not known for tact, intelligence or political acumen. So within two hours, everybody who knew anything had heard the news: during the Springtime Familiar Summoning, Louise de La Vallière had summoned a queen.
And then the Zero killed her!
She couldn't help herself. Kirche snorted.
The speaker turned in his seat. One of these days, she'd be sure to inform Malicorne that he was extra unattractive with his face blotching red like that. He was trying to look down his nose at her. All it did was give him another chin as he puffed red cheeks. Eugh. She waved a dismissive hand.
Pass.
"You saw it! You were there!" He turned back to his audience, throwing his arms open wide. "There was blood everywhere!"
"It was rather gruesome," Guiche de Gramont tossed his head, tussling his blond locks as he placed an elbow on the table and chin in hand. He leaned into the girl at his side, a simpering look on his face. "Are you certain you can stomach this, Mon Mon? You don't still feel faint, do you?"
"It was - " She hesitated, paling. Even her blonde pigtails seemed to quiver with fright. "It was nothing I could not handle," she finished quickly. She pushed peas around on her plate.
Guiche growled. "I knew she was a failure, but I didn't think the Zero could be any more of a catastrophe."
"She can't do anything right," Malicorne bleated. "First her explosions, now this? She's a menace!" He lowered his voice, leaning forward conspiratorially. "Maybe she was going to, you know, contract the queen," he hissed. Faces darkened all around. A noble, like them, bound and made to serve? Kirche imagined what would happen if her former fiancé managed to summon her.
He'd be her late fiancé then, she supposed.
"And it failed, like she always does." Suddenly Malicorne banged a fist on the table, startling everyone. "Boom!"
Kirche felt her habitual smile shrink a little as she absently twirled a lock of red hair around her fingers. The woman had been fine before the second explosion. A bit of a bloody nose, but then Louise had blown her up on arrival. After the second one though...
Malicorne had been right about one thing. There had been a lot of blood. That gorgeous white dress ruined. If she were to be honest, it still made her a bit sick to her stomach remembering the scene that morning. The petite woman in the summoning circle lying crumpled on the ground like that utterly still, surrounded by the Academy's water mages. The urgency in their voices and the way they kept trying said nothing good about her chances. The last anyone had seen of Louise's queen, she was floating in Professor Durand's cocoon of bloody water.
"Louise?" She said instead. She leaned back in her chair, arching her back just so over the top of it as she stretched. She could feel the stares drawn to her like metal shavings to a lodestone. "Little Louise couldn't hurt a fly."
"Wounds," Tabitha said quietly, blue hair barely visible over her latest book.
Wounds? Kirche thought back to their exam that morning. Wounds…
Then it clicked.
"Louise isn't a Wind Mage."
At her interruption, Malicorne turned back around. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Think about it, for once." She let her smile become smug. "Maybe Wind with enough force can make someone cough up blood - " She caught the subtle bob of Tabitha's head. Thanks for the vote of confidence, darling. "- and leave cuts like that, but if there is one thing her explosions are not, its Wind."
"Well, water does not explode," Montmorency declared stiffly.
Out the corner of her eye, Tabitha turned the page and lifted her right index finger, before settling back on the hard leather cover. The best Kirche could figure, that was Tabitha-speak for 'You're wrong, but I can't be bothered to explain why.' If pestered enough, she might offer a few tips on combat magic.
A few. Getting a full answer on anything from Tabitha was like pulling dragon's teeth.
"Fire?" Guiche tried.
Kirche scoffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Fire burns, darling, or my name isn't Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst!" This was a safe topic. The last thing she wanted to be worrying about was what would happen if the queen died. Even worse, what happens if she lives? "She'd be cauterized on the spot, not bleeding like a stuck pig."
"Maybe she is a Wind mage," Malicorne insisted. "Just with no talent at all!"
Kirche rolled her eyes. "She's not the Zero for nothing."
She caught herself pausing, waiting for that predictable outburst.
Nothing.
She frowned a little. Saying it without little Louise just close enough to overhear her just wasn't the same.
Now there was an idea.
Kirche made a little show of looking around. The dining hall was very open and spacious, not at all like the cozy dining of her old school. She could readily admit that it was a bit grander in exchange for being filled with more dunderheads.
You couldn't toss a pin without pricking a noble's fragile ego here.
"Where is La Vallière?"
/0/0/0/0/0/0/
The parchment hit the floor, covered in blots of ink.
Mechanically, a pink haired girl retrieved another piece and fastidiously positioned it on her desk. She flattened a slightly curling corner and picked up her quill.
Dear Cattleya, she wrote. She sat there for a few minutes and then slowly scratched out Hope this letter finds you well.
It was all she wrote.
She sat there searching for the words. Searching for a way to make her family understand what had happened, for a way to put things as delicately as she could, for a way to be optimistic and find the silver lining in disaster. She searched for a way to absolve her family of all responsibility without cutting ties. She searched a way to make them believe.
It's not my fault! I didn't mean to!
She already knew how her mother would respond to that. Her father and sister Éléonore would not be far behind. Unwanted tears blurred her vision. Frustrated, she used the back of her hand to wipe them away.
Rule of Steel, she thought and recalled how what little steel she inherited from her mother had met cold, blood red eyes under a golden crown.
And shattered.
She summoned a noble. More than a noble, a royal. A leader of a kingdom somewhere out there who had been snatched from her home and then - white cloth and blood and pain - delivered right to Death's Door. It was a mistake. A stupid mistake from a stupid girl - if that had been Princess Henrietta she summoned to serve her mother would have been the first in line to lop off her head.
Founder, her mother! What could she say?
She was still picking up the brittle iron pieces.
She had yet to find any true steel.
Louise bit her lip, blinking away the tears that kept coming. She put her quill to parchment. I pray this reaches you before any rumors and I she paused, adjusting her grip on the quill beg you to intercede on my behalf with mother and father. I am in dire need of council, but what is done is done.
I summoned a Familiar.
Her door clicked open, making her jump. "Y-yes?"
She turned her head when the only answer was silence. "Who's there?"
Her door was slowly drifting open, but there was no one on the other side. She expected Professor Colbert again, or a servant with some food. It...she didn't want to go down to the dining hall anyway. She put her quill back into the ink pot and slid out of her chair.
"If it's someone idea of a prank, I'll - " blow them up? White cloth and blood and pain. She hadn't been able to touch her wand without feeling ill since that morning. A brush of air touched her right leg, eliciting a small yelp as she reflexively raised the leg, hand going down to slap whatever and whoever's nosy familiar away. Her hand hit bare skin and her room was empty.
She peered out the door into the hallway in both directions. The students were down in the dining hall and the servants were no doubt busy with their errands. Suspicious, Louise investigate her door knob. Then she sighed.
It wasn't like she'd know a broken door knob from any other. She retreated back into her room and firmly shut the door with a loud thud. She returned to her desk and attempted to finish her letter.
Half an hour later, crumpled parchment hit the floor, covered in blots of ink.
Her door clicked open again and with a frustrated scream, tears leaking from her eyes, Louise marched over and slammed the stupid door shut. She stood there, glaring daggers at the door as if daring it to open once more. She ignored the way her shoulders were beginning to shake as she tossed her hair primly and went back to her desk.
She picked up the quill.
Dear Cattleya.
/0/0/0/0/0/0/
It was lighter than it looked.
The gold made satisfying tinkling sounds as she lifted the chain mail link sleeve. No one with any sense would make armor out of gold, but it wasn't just gold. The top of each link was crowned with a small, sparkling diamond in a setting made of the same white metal threaded through the center of each loop. Gold was a soft metal, easily dented, but she had a feeling that it would take a lot of force to even nick this. She turned her hand over, listening to the waterfall of gold clinking, and spotted a single line of black running the underside of the sleeve from palm to arm pit. Break the line, break the chain?
The rubies were big. And obvious.
The delicate, silvery script circling each red gem was not. The faint, blue glow even less.
She had a good eye.
And it was telling her that she was holding something priceless.
"It's cold," she murmured. It was like touching metal frozen in the dead of winter, a cold that burned. She reluctantly let the gold slip through her fingers.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Professor Colbert offered with a slight smile. "The current thought is that its, well, her 'wand.' A spell casting focus, albeit a much more complicated variant. Imagine if we knew how to bind the capability of a sword-wand to a piece of armor! And this!"
He picked the next item up from the table. It was a double-bladed silver athame with a queer bend to it, the edges curling towards a half moon shape. One edge smooth, the other serrated. A deep fuller cut the center of the knife and even bisected the guard to spill into a hollow circle.
Spill.
Her eyes narrowed in spite of herself. She was only a secretary after all. She shouldn't know a bloodletting tool straight from a vampire's lair from a steak knife.
"I've never seen such a ritual knife. Look!" He tilted the knife to catch the candle light. The metal came alive with moving shadows for a moment. "The craftsmanship is extraordinary, on all of her items! The stitching on the cloth, the metallurgy, the purity of the metals…"
"A nation advanced, rich, large, or all three," Headmaster Osmund speculated, a hint of exhaustion in his voice. An unfinished letter was in front of him, abandoned for a pipe of sweet-smelling smoke. "Strange that we've yet to hear of such a kingdom."
"The prevalence of pearls does seem to suggest access to the sea." Colbert's gaze traveled to the sodden mess of stained cloth and fur that used to be a dress. "And by her clothing, it must be somewhere colder. Perhaps far to the north of Germania?"
"If true, that would ease some fears," Osmund huffed. "Although Germania would be, shall we say, less than pleased."
"If there were...hostilities."
Longuevuille smirked at the hesitant, hopeful tone in Colbert's voice.
If.
"It's just as likely they would be more mercantile than militant. There must be some things we could trade, perhaps we might be able to negotiate some agreements?"
Their best hope was that their royal guest was a petty tyrant no one was sorry to see go. Not that it mattered, she herself would be long gone from Tristain soon enough.
"There is nothing for it." With a grunt, Osmond hoisted himself up from his chair and wandered the room, coming to a stop by one of the windows with a view out into the courtyard. "The Crown must be notified, if for no other reason than to receive permission to treat with our guest on equal footing."
She refrained from rolling her eyes. Because Founder forbid a noble is treated with anything less than their due respect.
Her blood was still red. That was all that mattered.
"And Miss Vallière?" She halfheartedly offered. It wouldn't do to seem too enthralled with their guest's treasures. "She remains without a familiar, despite a successful summoning."
She picked up the next item, a silver and unknown white metal pendant. Aluminum? It was elaborately decorated with a two-headed eagle wearing tiny crowns on each head and carrying swords in each talon. What could only be heraldry crests split the background into quarters of dragons, griffons and unicorns.
"Unless," she glanced up. "That will not be an issue?"
Colbert and Osmund shared a slightly guilty look.
"The thought - " Colbert began.
"- did cross our minds," Osmund finished. "However, good sense prevailed. It would be too much to ask for trust and cooperation when your monarch has a master. If one were to be uncharitable, it would seem we branded her when she was unable to resist..." He puffed a ring of smoke. "No, we shall wait for a better opportunity to broach the subject."
The pendant could open. Behind the eagle was what could only be a clockwork time-keeping device, gears prominently displayed behind a glass face. The numbers were in no alphabet she had ever seen before and the intricacy absurd. She made a small noise in spite of herself.
"Amazing, is it not?" Colbert beamed a wistful smile. "We could learn so much from her people!"
"Why would she allow that?" Colbert blinked while Osmund frowned, proving that he had similar thoughts. Longuevuille traded the pendant-watch for a gossamer thin gold necklace with two rose colored gems flanking a large emerald. The gold strand was made out of a thousand tiny links with impossible precision. "It's very likely she has never heard of Tristain either, why would she allow an unknown kingdom with unknown character a chance to approach hers in power?"
"We - we have time to make a positive impression," Colbert insisted. "It's our responsibility, no, our duty to appeal to a bearer of royal blood of our better nature. Think of it, a fifth kingdom."
"A fifth Brimiric kingdom?" Her eyes strayed to the bloodletting athame. She had only suspicions, but she doubted it. "What was done about the ...mold?"
The excitement drained from Colbert's face as it shadowed with some emotion. "It is secure. Nothing to be concerned about, miss."
She knew a warning when she heard one. "Of course, my only concern is what to mark on the girl's file. Succeeded the summoning, but does this count as failing to contract? The Familiar Summoning is considered sacred, is it not?"
Osmund winced. "Cardinal Mazarin would be better able to advise us regarding…" he waved his pipe vaguely, trailing smoke. "One more reason to inform the Crown of recent events. Quietly."
"Forgive me, but every student on the field saw that crown." It sat at the end of the display table, beside the pearl earrings and rose-gold ring. A handsome piece: a band of gold with a ring of pearls around its middle. The cresting point in the front sported a large, dark ruby set in a white metal diamond. The same silvery, glowing script around the gem. "All of Tristain will know about it by tomorrow."
"I've halted our mailing service, as is my right as Headmaster. I will make an announcement tomorrow, and hopefully, that will be the end of that."
Longuevuille knew her smile was more amused than it should have been. They were talking about teenagers, were they not? And her missive was already on its way. Royals were rarely anything less than square class mages, and this one had more reason than most for animosity against Tristain. That she carried in her blood a weapon against magic itself was just icing on the cake.
She might be asked to procure a sample. She would look forward to the challenge. Tristain at large may be kept ignorant for a bit longer, for all the good that would do.
"As you say, Headmaster."
/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/
When she woke, the sun had already set. The cloudy yellow light streaming through tall windows had turned bright moonlit silver. She must have been unconscious for hours. She could barely remember the last time she indulged in true sleep. Sixteen - close to seventeen years ago, but then she did not have much of a choice. She remembered her lessons. Sorceresses could not afford to be careless. Weakness was death. Yet, here she lay, weaker than ever before and miraculously not dead.
Yet.
The clutter of the room had been removed at some point, leaving a large, empty room for a bed, a dresser and a desk with a chair. By the door, a young woman sat in the chair, quietly knitting to the light of a single candle on the small table beside her. It was nowhere near the size of her previous rooms in the Summer and Winter Palaces, but then very few rooms could match royal apartments. It was far larger than the room she lived in as a girl, but more familiar. Cold stone. Wood. Even a slight draft.
She allowed her brow to furrow as she slowly sat up. Everything ached, her stomach most of all. It was a dull, throbbing pain with flashes of sharper pricks shivering down her spine and legs. Patience, she counseled herself. Be patient. The knitting girl noticed, letting out a small gasp as she shot to her feet.
"You - your...majesty?"
"Your Imperial Majesty," she corrected absently. Mercy preserve her, she remembered the language. That made her slightly less helpless. Her keeper looked no older than twenty in a peculiarly flattering white and black outfit. She would withhold judgement. The girl was pretty enough, with wide blue eyes and dirt brown hair. "Tell me -" She brushed her nose and nearly sighed in relief when her hand came away clean. "Tell me where I have found myself."
"The Tristain Academy of Magic." Her hands clasped in front of her, knuckles turning white as she bowed. "I am to attend you by order of the Headmaster, your imperial majesty."
The girl was afraid. That much was obvious. "And your name?"
"Ah, Marie, your imperial majesty." She punctuated her words with an acceptable curtsy. A little boldly she asked, "What's yours?" Her brain caught up with her mouth then, by how those eyes got even wider. "If I may! I intend no offense with my curiosity, I apologize!"
She felt the gentle smile pull at her lips. She always had a soft spot for those that did not know their place.
A ruby covered it now. A reminder of what compassion costs.
"You speak to the Dowager Empress Renia Maxwell Ruten of Rutenia." She waved a dismissive hand. "Duchess of Oldenburg and Restov, Lady of Karbadia, and others and others."
She turned her head to the window. Leaning forward a little further, she was able to see the smooth curvature of two moons in the night sky. She didn't even try to find familiar constellations through the smoky glass.
Lost, Руин had said.
Now she understood.
She felt like screaming, but she buried the impulse.
Deep.
"Am I to be a prisoner then?" She let her smile shrink as she turned back to the girl. "Or a hostage?"
"A guest," Marie was quick to reply. She might even believe it. "You will be treated with every courtesy here, not harmed!"
"Very well," she allowed. The fact that she had yet to have her Arcanum returned to her said otherwise. Patience. They might have thought it a simple pretty bauble, or underestimated just how naked she felt without it. "Do you feed your guests?"
"Of course." Marie chanced a smile. "I will fetch your supper right away."
The girl opened the door and Renia carefully did not react as a shadow wound between Marie's legs to slip into the room. It went unnoticed and the door closed with a small click. The shadow dripped up the foot of the bed to settle as a light weight on her legs. Renia smiled and slowly reached out with her bare right hand. Of course it wandered. She did not give it explicit instructions to return.
You left me sleeping, she told it with a hint of warning, but in truth she was unconcerned. Nothing had happened while she was vulnerable, and this one wasn't stupid. It nudged her palm and she trailed fingertips over the crest of its neck. I trust you discovered something worthwhile?
The girl can feel, it whispered.
She stilled.
That was not what I wanted to hear. But it was exactly what she should have suspected. How could one banish, or kill, demons without the potential to even touch them? Without the potential to see them?
Without the potential to use them.
Renia closed her eyes. It changes little. What else?
A series of images flashed before her eyes. She saw hallways, stairs and at the end a large room dominated by a desk with a small side table laden with her things. There were three people there, but she ignored all save her Arcanum. And her crown.
It burned the map into her mind, eliciting a small hiss of pain. Good, continue.
It showed her what could only be classrooms, filled with mage students accompanied by sounds and the taste of their emotions in the air. Yes, this was why she chose this one to be her anchor and guard her heart. It's curiosity was to its credit.
Marie returned with a hearty soup and bread, and was then dismissed to go about her other business. To bed, or whatever took her away from here. Renia ate slowly, allowing her mind to digest. When she finished, she steeled herself. Her previous debt had been unconventionally forgiven. It was difficult for something already lost to collect. She had no such reprieve now.
Payment? She gently questioned.
It nestled close, pressing against the pulse of her neck.
Pain!
It tore her throat open and began to feed.